CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

This shot was taken on our visit to Lake Garda in 2010 when we stayed in an apartment at the foot of Monte Baldo near Malcesine.  St Stefano's is the main church in the beautiful medieval town of Malcesine and this shot of the clouds covering the summit of Monte Baldo is typical of the fantastic scenery in this part of Italy. History The church of St Stephen (the patron saint of Malcesine) is visible from the lake in its position above the main town. A religious building has stood in this position for centuries - originally thought the be the site of a pagan temple, the first Christian place of worship was constructed in the time of the Franks. The current baroque building dates from the 18th century and houses the remains of two local saints, St Benigno and St Caro, who were reputed to have lived in a cave at the foot of Monte Baldo. For more information on Malcesine CLICK HERE Image taken on a Nikon D90 and 18-105mm f3.5/f4.5 AF-S VR lens - 1/320 @ f8 - ISO2...

This evening there was a beautiful sunset that turned the clouds about Grantham a deep pink so I grabbed my Fuji X100 and headed out to get a few shots before the light disappeared.  This shot was taken with the sun behind me with the X100 on a tripod and fitted with a Lee 0.9 ND Soft Grad filter.  The shutter speed was 1/8 which was used to give some movement in the rape seed in the foreground which was being blown about in the breeze. Image taken on a Fujifilm Finepix X100 with a Fujinon 23mm f2 lens. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE NEW GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL I...

On Sunday 21 April we visited Edinburgh to attend the World Diving Series finals at the Commonwealth Pool.  My daughter Kate took up diving following the Olympic Games in London last summer (yes Lord Coe was right, the Olympic Legacy does work) and has got quite good at it.  So when the opportunity to take her to see her diving hero, Tom Daley, in Edinburgh, we couldn't really say no. I decided to take the Nikon D800 and 80-200mm f2.8 along to see what I could get from the spectator area.  We had quite a good position but it wasn't that close to the boards so I switched the D800 to DX mode, making the 200mm f2.8 a 300mm f2.8 and giving me an extra 2 frames per second on the motordrive (6fps). Diving is an extremely difficult sport to photograph, especially from the spectator area, but by the end of the evening I was starting to get the hang of it.  The problem is that 10 metres is a long way up but the divers only spend just over a second in the air before ...

Foxton Locks are ten canal locks consisting of two "staircases" each of five locks, located on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 3 miles west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough and are named after the nearby village of Foxton. They form the northern terminus of a 20-mile summit level that passes Husbands Bosworth, Crick and ends with the Watford flight Staircase locks are used where a canal needs to climb a steep hill, and consist of a group of locks where each lock opens directly into the next, that is, where the bottom gates of one lock form the top gates of the next. Foxton Locks are the largest flight of such staircase locks on the English canal system. The Grade II listed locks are a popular tourist attraction and the county council has created a country park at the top. At the bottom, where the junction with the arm to Market Harborough is located, there are two public houses, a shop, trip boat and other facilities. ...

I like to trawl through the MacLean Photographic archives looking for hidden gems from yesteryear.  Today I was going through the 2005 archive and I found this shot from Glen Etive in the Highlands of Scotland taken on a Fujifilm Finepix S304 bridge camera.  At just 3.2MP this camera now considered to be obsolete but eight years ago this was a mainstream consumer camera with a sharp 6x optical zoom and a great sensor to capture the images. This got me thinking about the obsession with the latest spec cameras with 16+ MP and 8 frames per second motor drive etc.   Don't get me wrong, I love my Nikon D800, for my work there is no better camera, but not everyone is a professional photographer.  There seems to be a line of thinking that a more expensive camera will make you a better photographer and, to be quite frank, in 99% of cases I've come across that is complete rubbish.  My Nikon D50 was a superb camera and has produced some great images in my archiv...

This high contrast image of the sun bursting through the clouds over Loch Don on the Isle of Mull was taken in 2009. We were staying in a cottage in the village and had gone for a walk out to Duart Point when the clouds started to roll in off the mountains.  The weather in this part of Scotland is very changable and we always go prepared for it. Luckily it didn't rain but on the way back the clouds started to break up and the sun came through the gaps to produce a wonderful light show.  With a little patience on my part I waited until the sun burst through above the loch and the houses along the shore line. Image taken on a Nikon D50 and Nikon 80-200 f2.8 AF-D ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION If you like what you see on this blog please visit our  Facebook ...

For my recent trip to the FIA World Endurance Championship race at Spa-Francorchamps the Audi UK Press Office provided me with a car for the week, which an Audi Q5 2.0 TDI quattro S line S tronic in 'Ice Silver'.  I did a blog with my initial thoughts while in Belgium but now I have had time to do a proper review of my time with the car. Being a 4x4 my first impressions from behind the wheel of the Q5 was it was an imposing car. You sit up higher than in a 'normal' car but the layout of the controls is typically Audi, very logical, with everything falling where you expect it to be.  This S Line version also had full leather, which was sublimely comfortable on the long trip to Belgium. To drive the Q5 was a joy.  I expected it to be a lumbering beast but, again, the drive was very 'Audi', sure footed and precise.  It had a bit more body roll in the corners than I usually like but I soon got used to.  The figures for top spee...